Pavel Tcacenco

Pavel Tcacenco
Pavel Tcacenco on a 1952 Romanian postcard
Born	1892/1899/1901 Novosavitskaya, Kherson Governorate
Died	5 September 1926(1926-09-05) Chișinău/Soroca, Romania
Occupation	Professional revolutionary

Pavel Tcacenco or Tkachenko (Russian: Павел Дмитриевич Ткаченко; born Yakov Antipov or Antip, Russian: Яков Яковлевич Антипов; 7 April?, 1892/1899/1901 – 5 September 1926) was a Russian-born Romanian communist activist, a leading member of the communist movements of Bessarabia and Romania in the 1920s.

Yakov Antipov was born in the village of Novosavitskaya (nowadays part of the unrecognized Trans-Dniester Republic) to Yakov Antipov, a railway worker, and Smaragda Dimitrievna. The date of his birth is unsure. According to his own declaration on the occasion of his arrest in 1926, he was born in 1899, while his Siguranța (Romanian secret police) file noted 7 April 1899 as his birth date. However, an article published in 1926 in the newspaper Izvestia of Odessa, mentions 1892 as the year of his birth, while several late Soviet sources present April 1901 as the month of his birth.

In 1902 the whole family relocated to Bendery. At the age of 14 he began working as an apprentice in the local railway workshops, around this time becoming a supporter of socialism. After finishing a local high school in 1917, he left for Petrograd to enrol in Law school. There he joined the Russian revolutionary movement, adopting the pseudonym Tcacenco. He participated in the Russian Revolutions of February and October. In August 1917 he joined the Red Guards and fought against the forces of White general Lavr Kornilov. In late 1917 Tcacenco returned to Bendery, where he helped organise the local supporters of the Bolsheviks, and became one of the leaders of the revolutionary youth organisation.